Tips & Tricks By Cruise Line

Tips & Tricks You Can Use On ALL Cruises

What to Do First After You Book & How to Get an Early Boarding Time:

• As soon as you’ve put down your deposit you can log in to your reservation on the cruise line’s website (if for the first time, use the booking number, or the loyalty number your TA secured for you, and the same email address your TA used). Always check your legal name on the booking to be sure it matches your ID/passport! From the website you can explore the ship, change your bedding and mealtime preferences if needed, and find out when check-in opens for your cruise.

• If you want to board the cruise and get your vacay started as early as possible, then be one of the first passengers to check in online so you can secure a good boarding time. Usually check-in opens at 12:01 am on a certain day, based on where your cruise line offices are located. When I lived in California, for instance, I would check in to Carnival cruises at 9:01 pm the prior day because with the time difference and Carnival being located in Florida, that was 12:01 am in Florida. Princess offices are in CA so I had to be awake at midnight to check in. One thing to note about boarding times though—most of the time they will still let you board if you show up early (just don’t blame me if they don’t—we’ve never had an issue but this is a good thing to ask about on cruise ship facebook groups).

• If you really want a certain excursion or restaurant reservation, book online as early as possible after you’ve booked your cruise. (When these bookings open up varies by ship—from 2 weeks to many months in advance). You can also pre-book spa treatments and may receive a pre-cruise email with discounts. If you are less set on excursions, you can try to book onboard once you see what the weather would be like so you’re not on a catamaran in freezing rain. Refund policies vary. You’d be surprised but excursions WILL go out in terrible weather and if you choose not to go there is no refund but you may be happier to skip the misery.

• If you worry about seasickness, you might want to take a meclizine tablet before you even leave port. You need to take seasick meds BEFORE you feel sick or they don’t really work. And it can often be a bumpy ride outside the port area where the bay hits the ocean etc. Anyplace two bodies of water meet, it may get a little bumpy. We’ve experienced this every time we leave San Francisco, enter or exit the Alaska inside passage, and sailing near Brisbane.

Tips on Watching Your Onboard Charges, and Using Phones and WiFi:

• Before you go leave home, all passengers should download the cruise line app onto their phone. Once on ship you sign in to the ships free wifi (be careful not to accidentally sign up for paid unless you want to or pre-paid) to use the app. On some cruiselines you can use this to chat between members of your party, or locate them. Also, you can check your onboard spending account to be sure it is accurate every couple of days. Every cruise line keeps accounts differently so even if you are sharing a payment method, charges may appear of one or the other of you accounts, or differently on both. Figure it out or ask guest services. If you have a beverage package that limits your daily number of drinks, keep a close eye on your account to be sure you aren’t incorrectly charged (like if a husband keeps ordering for wife too and puts all the drinks on his account then gets charged an overage—if this happens go to Guest Services ASAP to get drinks transferred to the wifes account to wipe out the overage charges. Check on this every day or two and deal with it immediately. Try to shift which account drinks are charged to, back and forth, to avoid this problem.

• Be aware of whether you have pre-paid gratuities/service/incentive charges at the time of booking or will be charged them daily. These usually run $15-20+ per day depending on your cruise line and cabin category. You pretty much pay them separately no matter what (though some online will debate that and try to remove them) unless you are on an all-inclusive cruiseline or included them in a booking package. Don’t be surprised.

• When you are out to see, be sure to keep your phone on airplane mode to avoid roaming charges that can be high.

• If you are just looking at the shipboard app, you do not need to purchase wifi but if you want to go on the internet, post to social media, check your email, etc., you will need to purchase wifi on the ship. Wifi can be extremely expensive by the day and is priced per person or per device so be clear on what you are paying for (some cruise lines allow you to use one device AT A TIME and switch between but others do not. If your package is by the minute be sure to LOG OUT when done or your minutes will keep being used up even once you shut your internet apps. Our best tip is to see if you can purchase a wifi package by the day. Remember, you can use your phone’s regular data plan or an esim card when you are in port (even if you’re on the ship at the dock). Maybe you can consolidate your other usage into just a few singular days at sea to save money. Also realize that unless your ship has StarLink, your wifi may be pretty slow and intermittent.

To Carry With You When You Get On The Ship:

• Be sure to bring a printed or digital copy of your booking confirmation/receipt just in case you need to “prove” you have onboard credit, a drink package or gratuities included, if you do. Mistakes can happen.

• If it’s a warm day, keep a bathing suit under your clothing or in a purse or bag during boarding so that once you get on you can seek out the adult sundeck (or your favorite place), grab a cool drink, and relax and start enjoying your vacation, even before your luggage is delivered to your room or your room is accessible (usually not until about 1:00 pm).

• We always carry on a change of clothing suitable for the dining room, suitable shoes and underwear (hot tip—pretty hard to buy on board if your luggage doesn’t catch up to you for a couple of days).

• Take seasick meds and sunscreen with you. They can be more expensive, or even sold out, onboard the ship. If you’re going to a port with mosquitoes, also take repellent. You may need these on the ship before your bags are delivered (can be in the evening of the first day after you’re already sailing).

• If you are flying into port with liquid restrictions, check google maps for options of a shop near the port or your hotel, or on the way, where you can stop for larger sizes of sunscreen, bottles of wine that may be allowed, etc.

• Use waterproof luggage tag holders like these on Amazon*, because those wadded up pieces of paper come off when you staple or tape them, and we don’t want to lose any luggage. Also be sure to have AirTags like these on Amazon* or another electronic tracker in your bags—they provide peace of mind when you’re still waiting for you luggage, to know it’s at least on the ship. There’s no end to the cruise-specific products you can purchase, but we’ve narrowed it down to just a few key must have’s: see our Packing Page for more.

• Note that you DON’T need to bring beach towels (pools have them and you can take them into port) but we like to bring these Turkish towels on Amazon* because they easily fit in a day bag and have a secret pocket for your phone and key card or whatever while you’re out in the water—they’re soft and big and the sand brushes right off. They also make great pillows and sarongs for the pool or beach.

Cabin Conveniences:

• Get to know your cabin steward. Ask for tips on how to know which is port vs starboard, front vs aft, as many ships have design clues like carpet color, fishes swimming a direction on the carpet, etc. This will help you find your way around. Ask how the notification system works for when your room needs service or when you don’t want to be disturbed. If you have trouble keeping the lights on he can show you the card system. If you need more hangars, an ice bucket, wine glasses and corker in your room, or to have your refrigerator emptied of pay items you don’t want, he can help. Remember your steward lives on the ship and may have good tips on activities or places to go as well. In fact, all cruise staff can be a wealth of info and tips if you are friendly, listen and talk to them when they’re not busy.

• Use an open, empty suitcase under the bed (near the edge) for your dirty laundry. In addition to saving space and not needing a laundry bag, if you need to go to the self-serve laundry you can simply zip it up and roll it!

Hacks for a Special Onboard Experience:

• When you bring on your allowed wine bottles, they are for drinking in your cabin. If you drink them in a restaurant, you’lll usually be charged a corkage fee. BUT here’s the hack! We order wine in a bar the first day and drink it while wandering the ship. Then we take the glasses back to our room and wash them in the sink. We keep them in a clothes closet so the steward doesn’t return them as dirty dishes. Now we have decent glasses that look fine to carry our own (better) wine around the ship and into restaurants without being questioned. We also had this awesome TSA-approved corker on Amazon* to keep in our cabin until Australian airport security took it away (but the steward got us a corker to use).

• The bar in the steak restaurant is usually open to anyone, not just those eating at the steak restaurant. It can be a quiet oasis of great service and better than average wine and cocktails. They often have different/better wines available within your drink package (or for a tiny upcharge) than those found in other restaurants and bars. Same with the wine bar—ask if they have other wines available that aren’t on the “menu.” If you enjoy wine (even just the free ones in your drink package), the sommolier can be a great contact, can tell you about tasting events, recommend wines you like, and find your favorites around the ship to be sure they’re in the dining room you want or available at the wine bar.

• Find a quiet place where you can retreat from the crowds when you want to. Indoors this might be a bar/lounge/dance area that isn’t used during the day but is open. Outdoors, this may be an upper deck, less popular since no pools but still containing lounge chairs. Often you can find an outdoor shower there so you can still cool off every so often even without a pool. Same for the sides of the ship.

• A lot of cruise lines offer “afternoon tea” in one of the dining rooms on certain days if not every day. This event is free but rarely gets much fanfare and is usually not too crowded. Check your daily schedule and restaurant schedules closely or ask at Guest Services if you are interested. Note that on Princess, you can also get free tea sandwiches/desserts etc delivered to you in the Sanctuary if you are booked there during tea time.

• Sometimes it is nice to skip a port you’re not excited about and just have the whole ship practically to yourself. Otherwise, leave a little late to avoid the crowds getting off and come back a little early to eat for free on the ship and get out to the pool before everyone else shows up.

• If you have a tender port and your cruise line has numbered cards that you need to get in order to secure your place “in line” to get off when they call your group number, you may want to find the card location and get one early that morning. Usually you can get off any time after that number is called. But if you wait too late to collect a card you could find yourself waiting an hour or longer. We recently waited almost 3 hours to get off the ship. Also if it’s a tender, ask about your options ahead of time if you need mobility assistance.